The angry clouds persisted for weeks, they were relentless and frowned down at us refusing to yield.Neither did they ply us with their burden, but held it aloft overhead, beyond our reach.
The weeks stretched tenfold and soon communities combined their resources; an attempt to scale the distance was erected, but fell short when the angry clouds whipped at the groaning tower and threw it over. We became peasants and stole the bricks and the beams to build our own little fortresses against those who had even less.
The clouds teased us with sparse drops; they gave just enough to keep us alive; they taunted us over the long dry nights with electric shards that fractured the sky and cut us off from neighbors. The rivers were now agonizing trickles that only the longest roots could dig into. The trees were untouched by us; somehow we knew they were favored by the clouds.
Slowly we uncluttered the lands around us, humbled by the clouds that would shade us from the hot sun and send us small gifts of water. The landscape was sparse and arid, but still we made it a garden and the trees stood as monuments to the clouds and became guardians to us meager souls.
Scientists came to us from beyond the wastelands, they said the world beyond our borders was nothing but rock and dust. There the people had rebelled against the clouds, had sent rockets into the skies and hurled insults with a terrible result. Those people had even toppled the great trees and now there was no grass, and no green leaf to be seen. Somehow the scientists had survived the wide distance and had come to us.
They brought seeds; they brought nuts; they had kept a lone sapling alive, letting those of their own caravan to die, while keeping the small tree alive. Every one of them would have died of thirst before they let this sapling wither.
The angry clouds saw this, and they let the scientists through; they needed the scientists to complete the next step.
There had been a blight on our world before the clouds came. It was a heavy hand that pressed down on the world, wounding our mountains and hills; felling our trees; ruining our rivers and the ocean. The greatest of us, the gentle swimming leviathans of the deep, were dying, were asphyxiated. The flocks that swarmed our skies were dwindling, were extinct.
A Scourge had fallen on the Earth and spread to every corner.
Now everything had to die, or almost everything; that’s when the angry clouds appeared.
The clouds collected every drop of water and hoarded them; their bellies were full and groaning with the weight. The Scourge howled with hate because it needed the water to spread its veins into every crevice of the land. It heaved and bucked and it crept into our souls and turned people into misshapen craven beasts that danced and cursed and threw rocks and spears into the sky.
Nothing worked, the clouds stayed angry and held the arsenal in their bellies. The Scourge retreated and hid, quiet in dormancy. It thought if it lay still, it might be forgotten.
But we didn’t forget, we remained faithful and our scientists worked with the trees, spoke with the clouds and were wary of the scourge.
Leaves
are falling somewhere
in the hills
And the trees that seem to die
Over the dark season
Wake in the spring
They wake
But in this new climate
Refuse to speak
Or move
Now the aspen needs a new creator
A lord that comes with plugs
And lever and pumps
To feed and warm his roots
A sentinel will remain
In place
And with its creatures
Will tend the trees
For a time
Until this Scourge retreats
